On sensor network lifetime and data distortion

Fidelity is one of the key considerations in data collection schemes for sensor networks. A second important consideration is the energy expense of achieving that fidelity. Data from multiple correlated sensors is collected over multi-hop routes and fused to reproduce the phenomenon. However, the same distortion may be achieved using multiple rate allocations among the correlated sensors. These rate allocations would typically have different energy cost in routing depending on the network topology. We consider the interplay between these two considerations of distortion and energy. First, we describe the various factors that affect this trade-off. Second, we discuss bounds on the achievable performance with respect to this trade-off. Specifically, we relate the network lifetime L_t to the distortion D of the delivered data. Finally, we present low-complexity approximations for the efficient computation of the L_t(D) bound